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He glanced toward the girl and back again. “Do you know her?”
Brow raised, she looked past his shoulder toward where the girl sat and smiled. “I’d say so. Carried her for months inside my belly. Stubborn child, that one. Did not want to come into the world with any ease, I can tell you that much.”
The baron lowered his dagger, tucking it back into its sheath. “Forgive me. I did not mean to draw a weapon upon her mother. You merely startled me.”
“Mmm. And might I ask what brings you to these part of the woods?”
He twisted toward the girl again, feeling that full sensation in his chest as he caught sight of her smiling while she fitted her handmade crown atop her head. “I merely heard her singing. Her voice is quite lovely.”
“Like an angel’s.”
“Yes. Precisely. May I ask her name, My Lady?”
The sound of the woman’s quiet chuckle drew his attention to hers again. “Oh, I can assure you, I am no lady. A thief. A sinner. Trouble to some. But no lady.” Her laughter died to a wistful smile as she continued to stare off toward the young girl. “To answer your question, though. Her name is Lustina. Born of the light.”
Lustina. He’d never heard the name before in his life. Girls from the village had common names, such as Edith, Agnes and Miriam. Her name echoed in his ears like a song.
The baron realized he’d forgotten his manners and had failed to introduce himself, so caught up in the girl. “My apologies. I am–”
“I know who you are, young lord. It was I who brought you into this world. And if I catch you spying on my daughter again, I shall gladly take you out of it.” Her cheeks dimpled with a smile that matched the girl’s. With a raise of her brow, she lifted her skirt just enough to keep from dragging on the brush and stepped past him. “Good day, My Lord.”
He smiled after her and stole one more glimpse of the girl. Lustina. In that moment, the baron was certain of three things.
First, he had no intentions of staying away from her, as her mother had requested of him.
Second, the feeling in his chest was the undeniable proof that something still beat inside of him.
And third, Lustina, born of the light, would one day belong to him.
20
JERICHO
At my desk, I flipped through the pages of the grimoire I’d picked up the last time I’d ventured to the bookstore with Farryn. The book was so thick, it’d taken me an hour to scan through it, and I hadn’t even reached the end yet. I turned the page to an illustration of three women, standing around whom I presumed to be the messiah after his death, given the wounds on his palms and feet and the blood on his forehead. The text beside it described ancient healers known as the Met’Lazan. Humans, hand-picked by the heavens who were bestowed powers beyond the confines of mortal medicine. And they were believed to have been the ones instrumental in the resurrection of Messiah.
Apparently, they possessed the power to invoke angels and demons, but could not use their abilities to heal other mortals. I read on to learn that they spoke a language known only to the highest order of angels. One so innate, most didn’t even realize their fluency in speaking it, until called upon by the heavens.
Interesting.
I skimmed the text faster, hoping to learn what language it was that they spoke, but the ink toward the bottom of the page blurred, as if it’d gotten wet and had become completely illegible.
Frowning, I turned the page and found the Pentacrux described in the next insertion–a completely different topic from the Met’Lazan. I turned the page back and the ink had somehow blurred even more than before. I watched as the beginning of the text, which I’d already read, bled into the paper, until the only thing I could make out on the page was the illustration.
What in Lucifer’s name?
I flipped to other pages. The text there remained perfectly intact, but when I returned to the page describing the Met’Lazan, it had almost entirely turned into nothing more than an enormous, smudged ink spot.
“Splendid,” I muttered, flipping through more pages in the book.
An image caught my attention, and I paused on a realistic looking drawing of a black-winged demon in chains, body arched on the ground as if in agony. Just looking at it echoed a throbbing pain in my groin. It was paired with a description of Rur’axze, an incredibly agonizing sensation, exceptionally worse than the human equivalent of blue balls, which happened when a male existed in the same timeframe as a particular female or male--his mate, essentially. Even separated by realms, they could sense the other, and he would fall into Rur’axze, needing to be sated only by him, or her.
According to the article, the symptoms predominantly struck at night as the hormone that caused it had ties to lunar phases, and like with fucking werewolves, that piqued on a full moon. It was a condition known only to affect demons, which made sense, as my vitaeilem had lessened and the demon half of me had become more dominant in recent weeks. The consequence of Rur’axze was accidental soul consumption, or a type of bonding known asenchainsz. Unlike a true mating bond, enchainsz was a purely sexual form of slavery.
Much of the information provided, I already knew. The bit I was looking for was revealed in the next paragraph, which suggested diablisz steel as a means of preventing harm to the other person. Forged by the heavens, it was the only steel strong enough to restrain a demon from going after what he craved.
“Wonderful. I’ll be sleeping in chains every night.”
At a knock on the door, I closed the book and grabbed my drink, easing back into my chair. “Come in.”
